Saturday, February 19, 2011

We in the northeast have been hit fairly hard by Ol' Man Winter this year...we've had three or four substantial snowfalls already (there are still Snowbankzillas here and there two weeks after the last one), and the temperature often hovers in the single digits (Fahrenheit, that is).

When the winter doldrums set in, I like to dig out upbeat music from warmer climes.

Here's a ten-inch LP that followed me home from a yard sale a few months ago:It's a demonstration record for the 1956 Admiral hi-fi system...and it's also a soundtrack from the Lowell Thomas Cinerama spectacular Seven Wonders Of the World (that's right...it's two! two! two LPs in one! Sorry. it doesn't have a drop of Retsyn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8zwnXjIjPMshould explain the reference to an old Certs commercial to non-Yanks.). There are short snippets from (among others) a Watusi ceremony, an Indian wedding, and an Italian tarantella.SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD Various artistsAdmiral Hi-Fi Demonstration Record (unnumbered)1. "Metropolitan Rhapsody", introduction 2. Train Effect3. French Can-Can4. Percussion Effects5. "Genghis Khan" Indian Sequence6. Native Elephant School7. Native Indian Music and Wedding Procession9. Tarantella9. Japanese Percussion Sequence10. Watusi Native Dance11. Finale - "Metropolitan Rhapsody"http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KOJB21DPAll in all, it's a pleasant fifteen-minute excursion to Somewhere (Anywhere!) Besides New England.There was something maddeningly familiar (to me, anyway) about the (anonymous) announcer's voice. After the third or fourth intro, I realized that he was Hanna-Barbera voiceman Don Messick.

(A few years after this LP was recorded, Messick did the voice-over for some educational film strips made by the Bowman company...they were probably made for some high school auto shop course. I have three or four of the seven-inch soundtrack discs. Messick is credited properly on those labels. I suppose I could post one or two of them if there's enough intere$t.)

Messick did the voice for Yogi Bear's nemesis Ranger Smith and his little pal Boo-Boo, too. And Boo-Boo, Yogi, Ranger Smith and company are all in the following LP that features soundtracks from four Yogi Bear cartoons. I find it a little unsettling when an unfamiliar announcer's voice (Howard Berk, who also wrote the commentary) describes a scene that doesn't translate well to the audio-only world. Still, it's fun to hear these voices (and music and sound effects too) again. And I've always liked Daws Butler...he's also on that Jim Backus Christmas 45 I posted back in 2007.YOGI BEAR AND BOO BOOColpix CP-2051.Big Brave Bear2.Robin Hood Yogi3. Brainy Bear4.Buzzin' Bear1961: Daws Butler and Don Messick, voices; Howard Berk, announcer; stock music (by John Seely)http://www.megaupload.com/?d=45917YRDThe front cover had all kinds of extra "decoration" left by a previous owner......which came off quickly with a paper towel. The LP itself is, to steal a Yogi-ism, cleaner than the average kiddie record.

"Boo-boos" can also mean little mistakes. Hmmm...I can think of lots of this other type of Boo-Boos on record labels...the info on the label has something wrong with it. I think I'll post a couple of them now.

The boo-boos I'm listing here are real honest-to-goodness mistakes...I'm ignoring items that have the wrong label pasted on the record, or records deliberately issued under pseudonymous credits (usually for contractual reasons)...

This one's a bit weird...it's a classic 78 (well-played by the original owner) by the Benny Goodman Sextet. On the label, there's a credit to trombonist George Auld.Of course, Auld played tenor sax.

In the Russell and Hicks BG On The Record, they report (slightly edited for clarity):The initial Columbia release, 36099, erroneously credits George Auld with a trombone, not tenor sax. Later releases corrected this mistake, but George had some fun with it while it was current.

Of course, Good Enough To Keep was quickly retitled Air Mail Special, but that's a different story.

I recently found this pleasant, if not too exciting country record, which was credited to the wrong singer completely!

There really was a "Doc" Roberts who recorded for Gennett and Champion.For some unknown reason, Decca, who revived Champion in the mid-1930s, reissued two Dick Parman sides, but put them out under Roberts's name!

To be fair to the Decca Champion folks, Asa Martin often played harmonica on records by the real "Doc" Roberts...perhaps that's the reason for the confusion.

More Boo-boos some other time.

In the same little stack of 78s which contained the Roberts/Parman record, I found this very unusual item:Most Publix records had black and gold labels and drew from Columbia's Harmony/Diva/Velvet Tone dime-store stock, but this is obviously quite different!

This Ballyhoo record was sent to Publix theatres in 1929 to advertise Paramount's new feature, Innocents of Paris, featuring Maurice Chevalier. Columbia must have balked at the idea of using any of the soundtrack featuring Chevalier, who was a Victor artist. So they asked Irving Kaufman, the usual vocalist for the Harmony labels, to sing and announce as well!

Note the matrix is in that special 17xxxx Personal series Columbia used for paying clients...that Bernie Cummings/Humming Bird Mills Christmas record I posted in 2007 is another.

And the same recording is on the flip side.

Here's a side for Dave Whitney, local trumpeter/vocalist extraordinaire, who also runs a fine blog http://petekellysblog.blogspot.com/ . I know he's a fan of the Three Stooges (I confess that I am fond of some of their short films as well)...I think he'll like this record.It's the only record that Leroy Shield recorded under his own name. Shield is best remembered for composing and recording all that wonderfully familiar music used in the Hal Roach comedies (Our Gang, Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, etc.).

The vocalist on the otherwise snoozy Big Trail is Bud Jamison, who was a regular in the early Stooges shorts. The flip side, the mildly un-PC Sing-Song Girl (James Blackstone is vocalist this time) was covered around thirty years ago by R. Crumb's Cheap Suit Serenaders.

Links

About Me

Jazz and blues nut (apparently with an undiagnosed case of the newly-popular condition, Asperger's Syndrome...everybody wants it!), collector and researcher of old phonograph records (especially prewar material), love a good meal and a good game of Scrabble too. Add an ice-cold bottle of Moxie, and we have a date~~!